Re: CULT - Pesky gophers
- To: Multiple recipients of list <i*@rt66.com>
- Subject: Re: CULT - Pesky gophers
- From: E*@aol.com
- Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 21:15:22 -0700 (MST)
In a message dated 97-03-25 22:36:19 EST, you write:
<< Celia,
A king snake? It might be OK if it came out at night ONLY. I don't
think I would be a happy planter if I were gardening and met up with
one. We have rattlesnakes up here at 3,000 feet mountain country. I've
come very close to two of them killing both of them. Thank goodness they
were not in my iris beds or I would be giving up gardening. I now am
very careful when I pick up anything on the ground or move things around
in the shed.
NO SNAKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! >>
While in the east we thankfully have no gophers we do have voles. Voles
tunnel under fleshy roots and eat a variety of plants ( expensive oriental
lilies first). In the rocky hillside where I garden there were many snakes
of all the common sorts. When I encountered one in my gardens I dispatched
it. Snakes startled me and I felt uneasy with them roaming all over the
beds.
This went on for 3 or 4 years and in that time the vole population soared -
partly I suppose due to lots of good stuff to eat from my efforts and more
so from the lack of snakes that had been abundant.
Two years ago I changed my ways and learned to like snakes. They are
building up numbers again and the voles were less trouble last summer. I
vote for snakes in the garden even though it is a learned persuasion.
Claire Peplowski
Upstate NY nr Berkshires, zone 4 nothing new, still gripped by winter
